Nick Cave has launched a new website on which he answers questions from fans. Among the first was if we were likely to see a Grinderman reunion.

The Bad Seeds frontman has this week shared The Red Hand Files – a website on which fans can submit questions for the singer and writer. So far, most of the questions relate to Cave’s inspirations and technique for songwriting and relationships with other musicians, but one fan took to the time to ask if he “has plans to rock out again, a la Grinderman”.

“Many of you have asked about the reformation of Grinderman, although most not with the same lurid flair as you, so I sat with Warren [Ellis, bandmate] and we discussed whether it was a good idea,” replied Cave. “We both thought the world needed Grinderman, considering its current emotional climate.

“Warren wanted to wait until Trump got re-elected, in the hope he would invite us to play ‘No Pussy Blues’ at the presidential celebrations. I’m not sure if he was joking or not. I personally felt there was no urgency, and that the older we got, the better Grinderman would be – the more deranged, the more priapic, and the more morally dubious.”

He continued: “We both thought that Grinderman appeared to be a lot more popular now than when it existed, and we wondered whether that was simply the band passing into folklore, or whether the world had become, in the last years, more puritanical, less playful, and more hypersensitive, and that there were a lot of people out there, like you Marvin, who just wanted to listen to a band that fucked things up a bit.”

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Cave added: “We both thought releasing a Best of Grinderman record was a good idea. We thought it should be a double album.”

It was then up to Nick Cave to bring the atmospheric gloom to Open’er, triumphing with a huge hour long set.

A more rock-based side-project, Grinderman were formed of Cave with his Bad Seeds bandmates Warren Ellis, Martyn P. Casey and Jim Sclavunos. They recorded two critically-acclaimed albums ‘Grinderman’ (2007) and ‘Grinderman 2’ (2010), before disbanding in 2011. They reformed for a one-off performance at Coachella in 2013.